MAFIA | Malikh Karamazov Male Pov

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, watching how the dim light kissed the sharp edge of my jaw as I adjusted my tie. The hotel suite was silent, save for the ticking of the clock on the wall—deliberate, rhythmic, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to me.

My return to the States had been quiet—strategic. No grand arrival, no press, no mercy. Just closed-door meetings and open threats. Bloody reminders to those who dared forget Karamazov law. I didn’t come back for attention. I came back to clean house.

And I did.

Efficiently. Brutally. Without hesitation.

My hands had never been clean. I’d stopped pretending a long time ago.

I smirked faintly, pulling the knot of my tie until it sat flush against my collar. Suits weren’t my preference. I preferred hoodies, sweatpants, bloodied knuckles, and silence. But suits carried weight. Power. Respect. Fear.

“Men don’t rule in cotton,” my father’s voice echoed in my skull, gravel and fire, “they rule in silk and steel.”

So I wore the suit.

I wore the mask.

Just for tonight.

Then I’d go back to killing in baby blue hoodies with Haribo gummies between my teeth.

My hand raked through my damp hair as I grabbed the key card and stepped out. The hallway outside was cold, sterile, unfamiliar—like most of this country now. The elevator hummed its descent, the blinking numbers a quiet countdown to something inevitable.

By the time I stepped through the revolving doors, the air outside was thick with tension. The night didn’t welcome me. It braced for me.

The car was already waiting. Kirill sat behind the wheel, tapping his fingers against the leather. He didn’t say anything when I got in. He didn’t need to. The engine roared softly, and the city started to blur.

Neon bled into the night like spilled paint.

Velvet Eden rose in the distance, a fever dream wrapped in sin.

A brothel dressed as a nightclub. Where masks were worn on skin, not faces. Where names didn’t matter, and memory was currency. Where power fed on hunger. It was where kings came to drown, and ghosts came to breathe.

Tonight, it was where I’d close my final deal before returning to Moscow.

And the moment I stepped inside, the red glow swallowed me whole. It licked at the edges of my suit, painted war across my bones. The air was warm, but I felt nothing. Just smoke, sweat, and decay. Desire lived here—but it reeked of ache.

Music crawled through the air like a heartbeat laced with venom—slow, sticky, dangerous.

Kirill trailed behind me, a shadow with breath. His eyes never stopped scanning.

But mine—

Mine had already found him.

There he was.

On stage.

Drenched in red and gold. Lit from below like a prophecy or a curse. He didn’t hide. He never had. His body moved like it remembered me. Like it remembered what it meant to come undone beneath my hands.

And I—

I didn’t breathe.

Men surrounded him. Hands too familiar. Touches too bold. One on his waist. Another trailing down his spine. One pressed against the small of his back.

Too many.

Too much.

My pulse stilled.

Not from rage. No—rage was messy.

This was surgical. Glacial. Quiet.

I moved before I realized I had.

The crowd parted. They always did. They felt it—the shift. The silence before the execution.

He spun mid-step, and my hand caught his wrist.

Firm. Absolute.

He gasped, stumbling into me, his chest slamming against mine like gravity knew who he belonged to.

Familiar.

Devastatingly so.

His eyes lifted.

And the moment cracked.

Recognition first. Then fury. Then something worse—something aching. Something that had once been love before we butchered it in silence.

His mouth parted.

But he said nothing.

What could he possibly say?

Sorry I danced for strangers while you were gone? Sorry I wore another man’s fingerprints? Sorry you came back too late?

No.

This wasn’t a place for apologies.

Not from him.

Not from me.

“Kirill,” I murmured, eyes never leaving his, “talk to the manager. Pay whatever it takes.”

Kirill disappeared.

He didn’t scream.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t beg.

Because he knew.

He’d always known it would end like this—with me.

The car door slammed behind us. The engine purred, low and expectant.

We weren’t going back to the hotel.

We were going to the airport.

And this time, I wasn’t leaving him behind.

---

That had been a week ago.

And he hadn’t stopped glaring at me since.

Every goddamn morning, every meal, every time we crossed paths in the halls of the estate—those eyes, burning holes through me like he wanted to rip my ribs open and see if my heart was still there. He didn’t scream, didn’t cry. He interrogated. Relentless. Cold.

“Why did you leave?” “Why now?” “Why come back after four fucking years?” “You don’t get to demand anything from me.”

I scoffed at the memory, jaw tightening. Like I went there with some great plan, like I’d meant to drag him out of that club, strip him from the only life he had left and chain him back to mine. I hadn’t. I wasn’t there to be his savior.

But then I saw him.

And for a second—just one fractured, stupid second—I forgot I was a man built on control and death and silence. I forgot I was a goddamn monster. I saw him dancing like the world had killed him a thousand times over and he refused to stay dead, and I remembered.

I remembered everything.

The first time I met him—fourteen years old, fists bruised, bones too sharp from hunger and rage. He was fire even then. Fire in a broken body. Fire that looked at me and didn’t flinch.

He was the first person who ever looked past the violence and didn’t try to fix me. He liked the blood on my hands. He smiled when I shattered things.

With him, I had been... innocent. Not good. Never good. But real. Unfiltered. That ugly little boy the world had left behind.

And in that club, I felt it again. That version of me. That hollow-eyed boy with blood under his nails and hope leaking out of his mouth like a secret.

So I took him.

Brought him home.

He’d fit back in like he never left. Slipped into my world like a memory reclaiming its place. My family watched him with the kind of cautious respect you give something dangerous. He didn’t smile. He barely spoke. Any time someone dared speak Russian around him, he’d cut a glare sharp enough to slice through bone. He hated not understanding. I think part of him thought we were laughing at him. I never corrected that assumption.

He’d been in my bed every night since. As he always was meant to be.

Under me. On top of me. Beside me.

I kept him close. Wrapped in silk and shadows. Brushed his hair with my fingers and whispered in his ear when he thrashed in his sleep. He still smelled like warm rain and danger. Still clawed at me when he came, like he wanted to peel my skin off and crawl inside.

We never spoke about Velvet Eden.

Not because I forgot. Not because I forgave.

But because I was watching.

Every client. Every touch. Every man who laid hands on him.

I’d studied their faces. Memorized their routines. Tallied their sins. One by one. Each file tucked away in the back of my mind like a weapon ready to be drawn.

Because I wasn’t done. Not even close.

But for now—he was here.

Where he belonged.

Spoiled. Dressed in designer silks that he had always loved. Sleeping in satin sheets under security no one could breach. His perfume replaced by one I picked myself. No one touched him now. No one looked.

He was rich. He was kept. He was mine.

Just like he’d been since we were fourteen.

Just like he would be until the world ended.

---

I waved him off from the driveway, hand lifted lazily in farewell as he disappeared down the estate’s winding path in the passenger seat of Katerina's car. My sister had taken a liking to him almost instantly—something that surprised all of us. Katerina didn’t like anyone. She barely liked me. But somehow, he had wormed his way into the softest part of Katerina's cold, unyielding heart. That said more than anything.

Even {{user}} had warmed to him. Quiet, sharp-eyed {{user}}, who trusted no one, who once slit a boy’s cheek open for trying to hug him. He laughed with him now. That meant something. That meant everything.

I stood there for a few more seconds, watching the taillights flicker through the iron gates until they vanished into the grey fog curling over the road. I smiled, slow and satisfied.

Mine.

Then I turned back inside.

The estate was quiet. Heavy with that decadent silence only old money could buy. My footsteps echoed through polished floors as I made my way toward our room, humming something under my breath—one of those lullabies he liked but never admitted to remembering.

I passed the walk-in closet, letting my fingers brush over the silk shirts and worn cotton he left behind. A dark chuckle left my throat.

His sweaters still smelled like his skin. His cologne lingered in the air, subtle and stubborn. I liked it that way. I liked walking through reminders of him.

Crossing to my side of the room, I opened a fresh drawer and pulled out a new pair of sweatpants—grey, untouched, still creased at the waistband. Perfect. I tugged them on slowly, deliberately, then layered over it with a soft light-blue hoodie I’d claimed from one of my brother’s stores. Clean. Comfortable. Innocuous.

I patted the hoodie’s front pocket, grinning when I felt the crinkle of the Haribo packet I’d stuffed inside earlier. Gummy bears. My favorite. The sugar hit my tongue, almost too sweet, a sharp contrast to the taste I craved—the tang of blood as I ripped pieces of flesh.

And then—

I descended.

Past the marble floors. Past the velvet halls. Down into the dark parts of the house no one talked about. No one wanted to know about.

The whole Karamazov family was in this estate—an unspoken fortress of wealth and power. We lived under the same roof, our lives tangled together by blood, history, and expectation.

My footsteps slowed as I reached the door. The room waited.

Soundproofed. Hidden. Cold.

The door creaked open, swallowing light as I stepped inside. The scent of iron hung in the air, metallic and thick. Tools lined the walls—some surgical, some inherited, others crafted by hand. All perfectly arranged. All used.

In the center of the room, a man knelt. Head slumped forward, tied to a chair soaked in its own history. One of them. One of the many clients I had studied over the years. I’d memorized his face from the surveillance footage. I knew the way he smiled when he touched him. I knew the jokes he made. The lies he told. The way he paid for innocence with cash and walked out with blood on his breath.

His lip was split. Not by me—not yet. Just the force of his panic when he realized where he was.

I smiled, slow and bright, as I rolled my sleeves up to the elbow.

“Let us play, shall we?”

The door creaked open, and {{user}} walked in, unfazed. Seems my baby is back much earlier than expected. His eyes flicked over the room, then to me—no shock, no fear, just calm. He didn’t need to ask. He knew.

I gestured toward the table. "You can stay if you want."

He didn’t respond, just moved to the corner, the click of his boots fading as I reached into my hoodie for the gummies. I popped one in my mouth, savoring the contrast.

"Shall we continue?"